Our Thoughts Shape Our Reality… And Our Health

We each have around 70,000 thoughts a day. That’s an astonishing number, isn’t it?

Interestingly, only about 5% of those are new…so 95% of the time we’re recirculating the same thoughts over and over, day in and day out.

And studies have shown that nearly 70% of human thoughts have a negative origin. Kind of depressing, right?

When you do the math, that adds up to A LOT of potential negativity!

Thankfully, though, we all have a choice in how we think…despite the fact that we’re hardwired with a bend towards the negative, we choose how often we play into it. I promise you that even the most glass-half-empty kind of people can learn to look at things in a different, more positive light if they have the motivation and desire to do so.

I’ll share some strategies for how to do that in a minute, but first I want to discuss why it’s so important to both our mental and physical health to focus on the positive side of things.

Positive thinking fosters health, negative thinking fosters disease

Our minds and bodies are so intricately connected that we can’t talk about one without the other. Mental health affects physical health, and vice versa.

The research and studies that have been done around mindset and its effect on our health is truly fascinating. It’s been proven time and time again that our thoughts and general outlook on life play an important role in health outcomes, both in positive and negative ways.

People with an optimistic, positive outlook on life tend to be happier, healthier, and live longer than their pessimistic counterparts.

That’s because thoughts have the power to shape our biology…they affect hormone production, gene behavior, and more! Negative thoughts, for instance, increase the stress hormone cortisol which can drive inflammation and disease in the body. Other hormones are similarly affected by our thoughts, as are our genes. Through the discoveries made in the field of epigenetics, we now know that even though people have ‘genes of susceptibility’ for certain conditions and diseases, something has to turn these genes “on” in order for them to cause trouble…things like toxin exposure, poor diet, stress, lack of sleep, and yes…our thoughts!

Take the power of placebos, for example. If someone is suffering from a symptom and given a sugar pill that they’re told will “cure” them, many times they improve…even though the pill they were given had no medicine or capacity to affect their condition whatsoever.

Similarly, the reverse is also true — people who believe that they cannot get better or believe they’re going to die of [insert whatever disease they believe they’re doomed for] sometimes find that it indeed becomes their fate…almost as though they talked themselves into it.

I can tell you both from researching the subject and dealing with thousands upon thousands of patients over the years that the hardest people to treat are those who come in with a negative mindset. Perhaps they think their situation is unique to the point of being untreatable, or they feel they’re broken and beyond fixing. Sometimes they’ve simply lost hope, and don’t believe that there’s anyone or anything out there that can help. I can tell you that these types of patients have the hardest time recovering their health, regardless of their diagnosis.

Our mind and thoughts are incredibly powerful, and have the capacity to help us heal or keep us from attaining good health. We create much of our own reality through the things that we think.

Now, I’m not saying that shifting toward a positive mindset will instantly change your health for the better like a miracle cure…that’s not realistic. But over time it will have a compounding, positive effect on your wellbeing!

Work to change your thoughts now to help create an internal environment and energy that’s conducive to healing, not disease.

Tips for shifting your outlook

We all have mental scripts that we work from — repetition leads to the development of behavioral and thought patterns in different situations. While these can be helpful and are necessary to navigate life efficiently (pumping your gas, for example…isn’t it nice not to have to reinvent the wheel and think deeply about it every time you do it?), some scripts can be self-limiting and downright harmful. We can get so used to certain behaviors, beliefs, judgments, etc. that they become second nature, even if they’re negative or not serving us — they become automatic.

An example of this might be mindless eating under stressful circumstances…you know that the candy bar and donut aren’t good for your health, but you’re so used to turning to bad food for comfort that it’s second nature at this point, and you feel you have no control over it. Your mental script leads you through the same thoughts, feelings, and actions time and time again.

But guess what?

Mental scripts are no different than written scripts — we have control over them and they CAN be re-written! Everyone has it within themselves to take back the power of their narrative, and change the parts that need adjusting. It’s not easy and it takes practice and motivation to change…but it IS possible.

Start by paying attention to the kinds of thoughts that are running through your mind each day. Are they mostly negative or positive? Awareness is the first step.

When you catch yourself in a negative thought, stop and try to reframe — or change your perspective — on the situation. Look at it from a different angle, and try to think about it in a way you never have before. Here’s an example…if you’re prone to labeling yourself a “failure” and beating yourself up when something doesn’t go as planned, try removing that word from the equation and think instead about the lesson that can be learned, and how you’ll improve and do things differently next time. Don’t allow yourself to wallow in the negative, instead find something positive to focus on and redirect your energy into that. Emotion tends to overtake our thinking when we’re stuck in a negative mindset — don’t let it! Stop the cycle by introducing logic to the situation and thinking through what’s really going on.

I have a friend who wears rubber bands around his wrists so he can literally “snap” himself out of it when he catches himself in a negative spiral. He snaps the band, and forces himself to redirect his thoughts. And you know what? He is one of the most positive people I know…not because it comes naturally to him, because he constantly works at it!

Find a way to redirect yourself — imagine a stop sign in your mind, snap a rubber band on your wrist, go take a walk, do something to distract and give yourself a chance to reframe the scenario.

Like anything new it will be challenging at first, but I promise it can become second nature with practice!

Next, try to think about all the things you have to be thankful for, and focus your energy there. Practicing gratitude and thankfulness are excellent ways to crowd out negativity. In a bad situation try to look for the good, and know that there is always hope, no matter how discouraging a situation may seem. Forgive quickly, and don’t ever let bitterness set in — anger, bitterness, and resentment are, I think, the most dangerous emotions from both a physical and mental perspective. They can really eat away at a person and damage our health.

And, finally, if you’re feeling stuck in your health journey, I would encourage you not to give up — don’t lose hope or give in to despair. My team and I have helped countless people in this exact situation, people with unexplained symptoms who thought they could never be well again…people who let the negativity overtake them because they didn’t see any other option. But once they addressed the health of their cells everything changed. If you’re interested, please watch my webinar at www.coleclass.com to learn more.

I’ll leave you with two of my favorite quotes, one from Albert Einstein and one from Henry Ford:

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” -Einstein

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” -Ford

The Bible also speaks to this, declaring that “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he (Proverbs 23:7).”

So, what do you think?